EHA YEARBOOK 2009
78
ASP Software
While the picture here looks like a truck swallowing
its cleaner, this is from Townsville where they’ve
recently had lots of flooding from un-seasonally heavy
rains, so all efforts are made to improve truck hygiene
while reducing a ny ponding-water and minimise risk
of attracting “the big mozzie” during a dengue virus
outbreak in this tropical area.
ASPsoftware has recently been working with
Townsville’s Wa s t e Services (TWS) department to help
balance driver workloads (another source of ‘health
risk’ for overworked drivers and trucks). After merging
two neighbouring cities residential collection areas,
TWS engaged ASP to help by computerising their
yellow-highlighted paper-map route-plans and gather
onboard data to facilitate a fairer distribution of
workload amongst runs in any day of service area.
The solution involved innovative use of councils
cadastral map data linked to data from new onboard
GPS devices that could also automatically capture each
side-lift arm movement. The solution ASP developed
was able to count the actual lifts against potential
properties in a ny marked out run area boundaries on
the map as well as compare the potential distance in
these areas with that actually travelled (both inside run
boundaries and in transit to and from the depot or tip).
The next step once raw data started to emerge showing
large workload discrepancies, was to have the computer
split the day of service area for multiple trucks into
smaller parcels of bins so that software system could
recommend where to move or re-partition individual
truck route boundaries within a selected day of service
area, to come up with a more even workload.
While this is not rocket science to a mapping guru,
in layman’s terms it does involve calculating how long
it’s likely to take to do a street side section based on
an expected average travel speed and allowing a set
number of seconds per lift stop point. The idea is that
different streets have different densities of residents
(no pun intended) so to do a reasonable balancing job
of time and distance factors for different population
density areas the computer can do the math in a few
minutes. Add to this some factors such as when the
truck is likely to be full (assuming an average bin
volume or weight) and the computer can project where
best to break and go to the nearest tip.
In a normal residential collection cycle, each day-of-
service area may move the trucks further away from the
depot and further or closer to different disposal points.
Test-driving suggested changes will then bring-back
a ny unexpected actual time-of-day traffic or terrain
variations. This gives you feedback on how close the
projected balancing factors were to the real life run
time and lift counts. For good measure, time allowances
were added for driver fatigue rests and lunch breaks as
well as that hygienic truck wash at end of day.
The end objective: less stress and wear and tear on
drivers and trucks, from automated data capture and
a clearer picture of presentation rates that in-turn will
lead to encouraging more recycling
Man-eating one-arm waste truck? Or ... simply good truck hygiene
www.wastedge.com phone: 02 9499 6222
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